The Big Fear - by Andrew Case

Posted on November 5th, 2016

This book is the first of the Hollow City series brings us to New York and a story that starts with Ralph Mulino, a NYPD detective in the Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB). Detective Mulino is investigating an alarm on a ship when he finds the body of a dead man and confronts another one hidding in the shadows. After some tense chasing in a huge boat loaded with containers, Mulino is forced to shoot his target after noticing he had a gun. Unfortunately for detective Mulino, once he gets close to the body, he discovers the dead man is a police officer.

The next few chapters introduce us to two more important characters, Christine Davenport and Leonard Mitchell. Christine is Leonard’s boss at the Department to Investigate Misconduct and Corruption (DIMAC) and, as expected, they will have to handle Mulino’s case since most cop shootings fall in their lap anyway. Even more so when both ends of the gun are cops. Unfortunately for Leonard, Christine surprises him by quitting before the case reaches them and promotes him to take over her place.

From then on, the story takes the reader to follow either those characters in each chapter or a few others that we’ll meet along the way in a sordid business involving corrupted cops, financial crimes and plain old murders. The end is not as surprising as it could be but there are still some surprises awaiting the reader along the way. All in all, a decent police/financial mystery book. It goes a bit everywhere with the characters along the line so it gets hard to get too into it but still entertaining.